#hester bitterbrook

[beingatoaster]

Hester: 2, 10, 20, 35; Ryxtlin: 5, 11, 21, 29; Fsssh: 4, 12, 26, 37; Kolya: 1, 7, 32, 40; Jedda: 8, 18, 33, 38; Isgrac The Returned: 9, 14, 28 (once it's on the spell list), 37?

Here we are! :D

Hester

2. what’s their current hairstyle? has it changed? do they change it often?

Her hair is currently long and tangled and matted, which is its usual state. Sometimes she hacks it short, when it frustrates her, but it always grows out again. She's not any good at keeping it tidy even when she's in a state where she can do so, so it just... grows, and tangles, and eventually matts.

10. would they sneak out at night to look at the sky? how long would they stay there looking?

Sometimes Hester will, when her head doesn't hurt too much. It clears it sometimes when it's just a minor ache, staring up at the stars for ages. If she does go out to do that, she stays there all night.

20. do they like to keep plants/growing things in their space?

She thinks... maybe she did? once? In the life that doesn't exist anymore, she vaguely remembers bright little water plants, if plants is what they were, though she has no idea if they were in her space or she was in theirs. These days... somehow they always end up destroyed when the headaches get too bad, if she tries.

35. do they sing with their head voice or their chest voice?

She doesn't like music. Or maybe the voice doesn't like music, but it can't be the voice, because it makes her head hurt to hear it. Given the way the migraines grow when she can't escape the sound... she doesn't try to sing.

***

Ryxtlin

5. if they wear any, how does your character go about applying makeup? (methodically, nervously, messily, etc)

She doesn't much go for makeup, but she has tried scale polish and horn polish before! They were fairly nervous and uncertain applications because she was not super familiar, and they stained some perfectly good robes, so she has decided that they were too much work.

11. how do they feel about casual endearments? (babe, etc)

I think Ryxtlin would be super tsundere about it, honestly--she'd gripe and protest, but secretly be very pleased that someone liked her enough to do that.

21. do they touch or mess with their hair/horns a lot?

Not a whole lot! Once she gets a hat properly settled on the horns (she's usually had to cut horn-holes in it, which has the side benefit of making it more secure once placed), she doesn't mess with it, because she doesn't want to have to do that again.

29. if they wear any, where did they get their jewelry?

Any jewelry Ryxtlin wears would be a prize, justly won or taken. Maybe not by the standards of the local law, but by her personal standards, anyway. Unless they were gifts from friends, which I don't know has happened, but would make them even MORE valuable prizes to carry and display.

***

Fsssh

4. would your character sing along to a vaguely familiar song, even if they messed up the lyrics as they went?

As long as no one told him not to, and there wasn't anyone authoritative around to be annoyed by it! He would only be able to sing along if he'd heard it before, so he figures most people would understand that the incorrect lyrics aren't his fault, anyway. He would be happy to take their corrections!

12. what color would they paint their room? would there be a design on the ceiling?

Fsssh wouldn't really think of painting a room, especially if it had nice wood walls--he likes nice natural wood patterns. But if the room was the kind of gross that needed repainting, he'd probably pick something nice and cheerful, like a light blue or yellow. Diagrams on the ceiling would be fun, but he wouldn't think of it on his own, someone would have to suggest it.

26. do they write in their books? do they mind other people writing in their books? what do they write?

If it's HIS book and not one that he's borrowed, yes, he makes notes in his books all the time. And he doesn't mind other people writing in his so long as they don't mark anything (original text or his own notes) in the process. He writes notes on the text and sometimes commentary in the margin, and obessively corrects anything he knows to be wrong (not by striking it out, he doesn't get to do that either, but by writing a detailed correction in tiny font in the margins and then drawing a line over to the incorrect bit).

37. how would they pass the time on a train?

It depends on how lively the train car was. If everyone was quiet, he'd mostly read, but if people were chatting and talking, he'd people-watch! He wouldn't get involved in conversations unelss invited, but he always loves a chance to put new stuff in the Memory Banks.

***

Kolya

1. what kind of clothing does your character like to wear? do they have a style? anything they avoid wearing?

She loves anything flashy, bright, and expensive, though it has to fit some requirements--no or minimal sleeves, nothing long on her legs either, and it can't either be so tight as to be binding in action or so long and drapy as to get in the way. Between those ranges, anything goes, so long as it's eye-catching and draws attention.

7. how would they react to eating something that was spicier than they expected it to be?

Spitting and a lot of that cat lip-curl... a pause while she drinks water... and then diving anew into the food, because now it's a CHALLENGE.

32. can they play darts? would they?

Can she? I've never rolled her stats, but I know she's largely a Strength-based build, so probably not well. WILL she? Of course! She just needs to keep practicing, and she WILL practice every opportunity she's able. Especially if it's a competition.

40. if their mattress became uncomfortable as time passed, would they notice it? would they do anything about it?

Oh, she'd definitely notice, and would remedy it as soon as possible. Kolya CAN sleep rough, but why do that when she doesn't have to? She should have luxury whenever the opportunity presents itself.

***

Jedda

8. are their hands steady?

Yes! She's one of those people where when she's scared or nervous, the world narrows down and she paradoxically gets steadier.

18. would they sing a lullaby, if the opportunity arose?

She grew up with a bunch of niblings on a houseboat, so she has a lot of practice, and honestly would LOVE the opportunity to sing one for her group. In fact, maybe that's what the wizard needs for her sleep problems....

33. where are they in a group hug? (dead center, outside, etc)

Well, going by recent in-game events, the nucleus, because she's usually the instigator, and everyone else gathered around after she hugged the first person both times it happened. (Being the shortest of the group also contributes. She might be on the outside more in an all-halfling group!)

38. do they bother to clean ink/chalk/gunpowder/etc off of their fingers? are they likely to forget it’s there and smudge their nose?

Oh, she absolutely forgets and smudges herself up, at least if it's any kind of attention-grabbing situation. The fate of the ship, or the successful completion of the letter, is more important than a little bit of smearing!

***

Isgrac

9. if someone gave them flowers, what would they do with them?

Previously answered!

14. do they tend to run hot or cold? do they do anything to deal with that?

Isgrac is actually pretty insensitive to temperature. She probably LOOKS like she runs cold because she wears so many knits and layers, but that's just because that's what she's used to wearing after spending all her life in the mountains. She doesn't notice that she's hot in them, though, really, unless she gets grossly sweaty (and at that point it's usually post-fight and she's gross in so many ways that temperature doesn't register). She likes bundling up, but it's honestly more an emotional response than a temperature response. She couldn't tell you which way she ran if asked, temperature is just... an irrelevant variable to her unless it's really, really intense.

28. if they can fly, how do they feel in the moment their feet touch the ground again?

I suspect she'd feel both relieved (that she doesn't have to worry about concentration breaking and being knocked out of the sky) and disappointed (that she's not high up above everything, able to see the big picture so much more clearly). I think she is going to LIKE flying outside of a combat situation a whole lot, so if there's no danger present, it's just the disappointment.

37. how would they pass the time on a train?

Almost certainly reading, unless someone was there willing to be infodumped at, in which case she could also spend a couple happy hours with a captive audience!

[beingatoaster]

Ferosi can't swim - in over a hundred and eighty years, she hasn't once learned how. She claims she's not afraid of deep water, but absolutely insists on clinging to someone else while crossing anything but the shallowest of streams, Just In Case the current is unexpectedly strong.

Hester hasn’t really forgotten her old life, per se--she gets migraine symptoms when she tries to think about it too strongly, so she doesn’t, but sometimes things still slip through. Passive knowledge, mostly, or flashes of memory. It’s easier to pretend she doesn’t remember at all, though, so that’s what she goes with. She already looks haunted enough that it stops people asking questions.

That said, what she does seem to have lost all the names associated with her life before the bubbling water started to speak to her. Even her own--after she made her pact, some local villagers found her in a creek and pulled her out, and since she wasn’t very capable of language at the time they just named her (“Hester” because it was the first name they thought of, “Bitterbrook” from the name of the creek). Her family, her home colony, everyone she knew back then, there’s no names attached at all.

[beingatoaster]

Today’s prompt was ‘eldritch,’ and once again, I did not go particularly spooky with it, but it made me think of Eldritch Blast and then I had to write for one of my warlocks. This one is also very much a warmup, so it’s not great, but it served the purpose of stretching the brain-muscles.

---

Hester's magic crawls and pulses like her headaches do. Not all the time, and not all in the same ways. One spell might pulse, slow and steady and awful, like the pain does under her cheekbones sometimes, and another might glow with a blue outline around whatever she targets or whatever she sees. Yet another might be flash too bright, stabbing through her eyelids and everyone else's, or prickle through her sinuses when she casts it.

And the simplest of her spells, the one that the bubbling voice told her was for defending herself when all else failed, crackles and wavers like a visual expression of the wobbling pain that throbs through her skull as the headache comes on, and hits with a solid thump like the headache settling to rest within her bones.

She flings it most when her head is throbbing the exact same way--that's when she needs it to defend herself, anyway, when she's gone far enough that making words hurts too much to try, but before she's in so much pain that she's comatose and helpless. It helps to clear the room, if people won't leave on their own.

Like the innkeeper, faking concern, trying to fuss over Hester and drape wet cloths over her head. Hester knows better. The innkeeper is plotting something, she's sure of it, and the bubbling voice just confirms that for her. She hisses and snarls at the woman when she comes too close, and when that doesn't work, she raises her hand, and the crackling energy, the color of murky, watery depths, comes pouring out.

The woman is flung into the far wall, by the door, dropping her tray and her bucket. She screams in alarm, swears at Hester as she gathers herself up, and Hester raises her hand again in warning. Before she can unleash another blast, the innkeeper retreats, scrambling out of the room and slamming the door behind her.

Hester drops her hand and lets the energy flow away, crawling back up her arm, vibrating up through her muscles and her bones before coming to roost in her skull. It will change to the pulsing pain soon enough, and then she won't be able to open her eyes or lift her head or do anything but breath, slowly, in time with the pulsing waves. Which won't help the pain, but feels better than breathing cross-wise to it.

In the back of her head, the bubbling voice hums an affirmation. She did the right thing, it whispers, driving the woman away. She only would have taken advantage of Hester once she passed into incapability. She doesn't need anything, anyone but the voice, and the gifts that it gives her.

Which she knew already. The first prickling warnings of oncoming pain, the fuzzy auras and the eye-biting brightness of the lights, hadn't started until she'd spoken to the innkeeper that morning. Until she'd given her name, and some of her mission, and begun, foolishly, to trust her kindly facade. Now Hester will be stunned and vulnerable in the woman's care, and it's her own fault. But it's all right. The voice will take care of her. It gave her the magic, and it won't let that gift be wasted.

She sinks into the pain, her magic rising around her like bubbles, as if she was tumbling into the deep. The room fades away. There's nothing here but darkness, and pressure, and the pain clamping down on her skull. She'll rise out of it this time, thanks to the voice, thanks to its warning, thanks to the magic that had driven the innkeeper's malice away. Someday she won't, but with the voice's help, she'll put that day as far away as possible.

Outside of those depths, the innkeeper peers into the room, the door cracked just a little. Magic crackles around the hands of the emaciated woman in the bed, muddy bluish-green, a horrible shade like the water of a silty lakebed. The innkeeper looks at the pain furrowing the unconscious woman's brow, then at the magic, and then slowly, reluctantly, closes the door again. There's nothing that she can do to help.

[beingatoaster]

Hester Bitterbrook is an odd one, even for a sea elf. They might be a bit of a mystery to most of the folk of the land, but elves are elves, and everyone knows elves. They’re supposed to be elegant, and wise, and beautiful, and... well, she’s pretty enough, sure, but she’s clumsy and uncoordinated, and she seems to view the world through a haze of perpetual confusion. She’d be a sitting duck if not for that orb of hers, the one that glows and sparks when she’s in danger, and makes magic dance out of her. Sometimes, if the danger’s deep enough, a glowing spear even appears in her hand, and she clearly was trained in it once upon a time, though she doesn’t seem to remember how practiced and graceful she shows herself to be with it, after.

It’s strange, too, because Bitterbrook doesn’t seem like an elf name (though it could be, one supposes, just translated into common--wise folk say that elfy names are like that, and some learned fellow from the city once said that hers would be Siannsial, translated back to Elvish). And Hester isn’t elfy at all. But any questions about her past make her head hurt, she says, and she’ll stare right through you and get all scared and start to cry, and it’s hard to justify pressing her on it for long. Besides, anyone who looks can see how haunted she is; there was something terrible what happened to her, something she’s running from, and it’s not kind to stir that up on her. It’s not like she does any harm, if she’s left alone and kept away from bad people. Sure, sometimes she spends days lying in a stream and comes out all magic and staticking, and sometimes she has a nightmare and blows a wall out in her sleep, but she doesn’t mean that harm, so it doesn’t count. She’s strange, sure, but it’s kinder to leave her be.

Race: Sea Elf

Ability Score Increase: Dexterity +2, Constitution +1

Age: Elves usually consider themselves adults around 100, and can live up to 750 years. Hester doesn’t remember how old she is, exactly, but other elves place her somewhere between 300 and 400 years old.

Alignment: True Neutral (but with real potential to slide into Neutral Evil...)

Size: Medium (5′2″, 90 lbs)

Speed: 30 feet

Darkvision: 60 feet

Keen Senses: proficiency in Perception

Fey Ancestry: Advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and can’t be put to sleep by magic.

Trance: Instead of sleeping, meditate deeply for 4 hours a day.

Languages: Common, Elvish, Aquan.

Sea Elf Training: proficiency with spear, trident, light crossbow, and net

Friend of the Sea: Using gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas with any beast that has an innate swimming speed.

Class: Warlock (Great Old One Patron, level 3)

Patron Attitudes: You are mostly left to your own devices with no interference from your patron. Sometimes you dread the demands it will make when it does appear.

Special Terms: When directed, you must take immediate action against a specific enemy of your patron.

Armor proficiencies: Light armor

Weapon proficiencies: Simple weapons

Saving Throw proficiencies: Wisdom, Charisma

Skills: Deception, Nature

Awakened Mind: Can telepathically speak to any creature you can see within 30 feet of you, as long as they can understand at least one language.

Eldritch Invocations: Repelling Blast, Repelling Blast

Pact Boon: Pact of the Tome

Spells:

Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion, Shape Water (Tome), Shocking Grasp (Tome), Thaumaturgy (Tome)

1st Level: Dissonant Whispers, Hex, Arms of Hadar

2nd Level: Crown of Madness

Background: Haunted One

Harrowing Event: You were born in the grip of a dark current. You can feel it around you, cold and distant. Sometimes it beckons you in the dead of night, and once you were foolish enough to follow it.

Skill proficiency: Arcana

Language: Deep Speech

Feature: Heart of Darkness (commoners fear you, but will extend the utmost courtesy to you)

Personality Traits:

I don’t talk about the thing that torments me. I’d rather not burden others with my curse.

I put no trust in divine beings.

I have my own ideas about what is and is not food, and I find the eating habits of those around me fascinating, confusing, or revolting. (from Far Traveler)

I’ve been isolated for so long that I rarely speak, preferring gestures and the occasional grunt. (from Hermit)

I often get lost in my own thoughts and contemplation, becoming oblivious to my surroundings. (from Hermit)

I’m always picking things up, absently fiddling with them, and sometimes accidentally breaking them. (from Outlander)

I am horribly, horribly awkward in social situations. (from Sage)

Ideals:

Desperation: I’ll stop the spirits that haunt me or die trying.

Suspicious: I must be careful, for I have no way of telling friend from foe here. (from Far Traveler)

Power: Solitude and contemplation are paths towards mystical or magical power. (from Hermit)

Bonds:

I keep my thoughts and discoveries in a journal. My journal is my legacy.

I’m still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me. (from Hermit)

I sold my soul for knowledge. I hope to do great deeds and win it back. (from Sage)

Flaws:

I have certain rituals that I must follow every day. I can never break them.

I feel no compassion for the dead. They’re the lucky ones.

I talk to spirits that no one else can see.

Despite my best efforts, I am unreliable to my friends. (from Entertainer)

The people who knew me when I was young know my shameful secret, so I can never go home again. (from Folk Hero)

I like keeping secrets and won’t share them with anyone. (from Hermit)

[beingatoaster]

For Ryxtlin: 1, 16, 31, and 72; for Hester: 29, 48, and 60; for Krue: 19, 20, 32, and 58; and for Tiaathque: 36, 53, 54, and 86?

I also finished these answers today and I’m not sure how it happened, but I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth….

Ryxtlin

If your character wasn’t an adventurer, what livelihood would they lead?

Going by the tools she’s proficient in and the needs of her tribe, she’d be a potter. It was the craft she was trained in, and she was actually good at it; she could make very nice designs with the simple materials and glazes they had on hand, and she liked experimenting with glazing techniques. So if she’d stayed with the tribe, that would have been her primary role, though in her tribe everyone does a little bit of everything.

Which means she had basic jeweler’s skills early on, but kobolds don’t have the infrastructure and materials to create really fancy pieces (her tribe worked mostly in copper and tin, with what gems they were able to mine and cut themselves, and her training was as much gemcutting as actual jewelry-making); she taught herself some fancier metals and techniques, by secret observation and experimentation, after she left the tribe and stole some fancy jeweler’s tools from an artisan she spied on. So if somehow she’d been forced to give up on being a lizard wizard, she might have turned to that to support herself.

16. If your character wasn’t whatever class they are, what would they be instead?

Scout rogue! Dex is actually her highest stat, and one of the non-crafter duties that she shared in her tribe was being a scout for the tribe (which pretty much all young adults were at some time or another). She’s always had a thieving soul, and she’d love to learn how to use lockpicks as-is, so if her life had gone down another path that also led her to adventuring, she almost certainly would have gone rogue.

31. What stereotypical group role does your character play in the party? (The Mom, the Mess, the Comic Relief, etc. Optionally: What role would your character play in the “Five Man Band” structure?)

Corric’s crew doesn’t map real well to the Five Man Band structure, honestly, but in a group that did, Ryxtlin would be either the Smart Guy or the Lancer depending on whether someone else fit one of those roles better.

More generally… she’s the Guest Appearance member (Hendrich is more so, as are other OCs that I imagine Corric’s crew meeting/allying with, but of the core four Ryxtlin is the only one who just leaves the party for long stretches once Corric has roped them all together), at times most of the party reads her as the Back-Stabber/Potential Traitor, and she’s definitely, in that group, the Token Evil Member.

72. Who in the party would your character trust the most to keep an important secret?

Depends on the secret! Counting Corric’s crew as the party, she would trust Brochilde with a Crime Secret (Brochilde is the most understanding about how sometimes you just gotta do a crime), and Rudnik, eventually and grudgingly, with a Magic Secret (Corric would be too likely to share or use it, but Rudnik is even more secretive about magic than wizards, and for what she can reluctantly admit are better reasons). No one gets Personal Secrets until super late in the game, carefully sharing them out and watching for the reaction. Corric doesn’t get any secrets that she isn’t willing for the rest of the party to know, because Corric would share them. Hendrich, who only shows up sometimes, doesn’t get any at all.

Of those not in Corric’s crew, Scrape would get Personal Secrets, Magic Secrets, and most Crime Secrets–just not any Ryxtlin is actually ashamed of, because she knows Brochilde is carrying a Big Crime Shame around and doesn’t have the moral high ground on her, but she actually values Scrape’s opinion of her. Viv would be told Magic Secrets as a matter of course, more than anyone else, because she might use them for the benefit of other kobolds.

—

Hester

…man, I just realized on re-reading Hester’s bio that I originally was gonna make her have the weapon-calling pact, then got caught up on the idea of extra cantrips while doing the mechanics and never went back and changed the fluff. XD;;

29. What are your character’s hobbies and interests outside of their class?

Hester vaguely remembers that she was an artisan, once! Or at least, she assumes she was an artisan. She remembers making chains of braided seaweed and shells, bracelets and anklets and pendants and crowns…. Sometimes she tries to do it with the materials she’s found on land, polished rocks and string and wire, but it never comes out the same. She tries anyway. It’s a learning process.

She hates music, books it right out of there if a visiting entertainer pulls out a drum or lute, but she likes stories. She’ll sit entranced for hours, listening to the legends of the land. And while she doesn’t remember any sea-elf stories in full, and doesn’t like poetry that’s too much like music–no rhythm or rhyme, just flow–she can invent sweeping epics herself, reams of loose verse invented from choppy memory and stories she’s heard and the empty air.

48. What aspect of your character’s future are they most curious about? (If they could know one thing about the future, what would it be?)

She wants to know if everything is worth it. If her patron really means to come through. If, should she finish meeting all its inscrutable demands, it will heal her entirely, make her pain ease and help her block out the relentless sensory and emotional assaults of the world. Because she thinks it might betray her, that it might just be dangling the impossible to pull her strings, but the only reason she’d stop answering to it would be if she knew for absolute certain that it wouldn’t pay off in the end.

60. What decision would the party have to make in order for your character to consider splitting off from the group?

Honestly, they’d be more likely to cut her off if she slid too far into darkness, but…. Given the group that I made her as a back-up character for? If the party decided to try and pull her away from her patron. I could see that lot doing it, tbh, and she wouldn’t stand for it.

—

Kr'AUKtktktktkwer

19. Where in the world does your character most want to visit?

Given that she’s specifically in the Breaking Light world… she doesn’t want to go underground but she does want to meet drow, so somewhere in Fyrsteinn where they live above-ground. And she’d like to see the mountains of Vazlann–she’s seen snow before, but only on the highest peaks, and the idea of it being everywhere is exciting. Also, it would be nice to meet orcs who aren’t super-invested in the duels of the thunder gods.

20. What is the biggest mistake your character has ever made?

Well, if you asked Krue, it would be not realizing how unhappy her sister was, or that she might run off and do Super Dome Shit. If you asked Krac, it would be not supporting her, even emotionally, in her attempts to rebel and find happiness. If you ask anyone else… definitely the time early on in her attendant training when she accidentally dumped an honored elder’s ashes on their grandchildren. The conductor of rites had to improvise real fast to make it seem like that was a New Religious Addition and not an accident.

32. What is your character the most insecure about?

Getting Things Right. Krue wants to do things exactly, precisely, the proper way, and she hates messing up. That goes for rituals, physical tasks, social interactions… she’s super polite and formal because informality leads to the possibility of offense, and so it’s really hard for her to lower her guard and actually chat like a normal person. Even when she does, though, her subjects of conversation often throw others off, so… it’s a lose/lose situation.

58. If somebody (an NPC, someone from their backstory, etc.) your character trusts/loves asked your character to do something against the party’s best interest, who would they side with?

It really depends on who it was, since she has more… fraught feelings about this than she’s willing to say or admit. One of her ideals is ‘blood is thicker than water,’ and if she was asked about her family she’d say that she’s hoping Krac will decide to go along with her family instead of considering any dangerous course she might be upon, in truth Krue would be very torn if she Krac had a convincing story about her reasons–she might actually side with her. As for the elders and her peers and parents, she respects them all intensely, but if she bonded with a party, they also might come first… deep down, she’s very much about individuals over people.

—

Tiaathque

36. What would be your character’s theme song/favorite band/favorite genre of music?

Very soft, light music. She would be all over Enya.

53. What is your character’s favorite spell? If they don’t use spells: what is their favorite personal weapon/combat maneuver/skill/etc.?

Mage Armor is the spell she uses most often, but once she starts getting involved in Phyrea’s peasant-rebellion hobby, and also reaches a high enough level, she becomes very, very fond of Hold Person. Slap it on anyone: the snitch you caught trying to sneak off from the rebel’s meeting, the injured person who can’t seem to hold still long enough to be treated, the constables who showed up with sword in hand to try and put an end to the rousing speech against the local authority. It’s not her chosen school, but it’s one of the few non-Abjuration spells she does regularly prepare, just because it makes so many things so much easier.

Also, combine it with Glyph of Warding and you have the perfect trap for assassins and saboteurs. Tiaathque really wishes she didn’t ever have to worry about assassins, but when she does, it’s a beautiful combo for handling them.

54. How does your character feel about keeping secrets from the rest of the party?

Though I’ve played with the idea of them picking up Hicwynn as a tank, for the most part, “the rest of the party” is Phyrea, and Tiaathque doesn’t keep secrets from her. Not intentionally, anyway, not things that she thinks of as secrets. Sure, she’s reluctant for a long time to tell Phyrea the fully story of her origin, but that’s not really a secret. Nor is it a secret when something is troubling her–she’s just not bothering Phyrea, that’s all. And if it’s something personal, something she treasures or something that’s hurting her or something that she doesn’t want to waste people’s time with, yeah, she’s gonna fold around that thing and lock it down until and unless it comes out on its own and bites her in the ass.

If she was traveling with someone that she thought might not be trustworthy with their secrets, hers and Phyrea’s, especially the fighting-for-liberation stuff, she wouldn’t hesitate to stay mum or lie as needed to keep that knowledge safe. Whether they were good-hearted and loose-lipped, or too certain that authority could be trusted and reasoned with, or outright against the idea of helping people gain their freedom… the reason wouldn’t matter, whether she liked them wouldn’t matter, she’d keep that stuff close to her chest until she trusted them. No regrets.

86. Does your character consider themselves a hero, villain, or something else?

Phyrea considers them heroes. Phyrea is a bundle of good intentions and poor impulse control and can justify any harmful mistake to herself because they meant well. Tiaathque… is much more cognizant of the ripple effects of their actions, and how they can unintentionally do more good than harm. And yet she helps Phyrea anyway, even when she can see it rebounding on people down the road. So no, she doesn’t consider herself a hero, personally. Or even a hero’s sidekick. An enabler of heroic tendencies, that’s probably the best way to look at it.

[beingatoaster]

I remembered this gal and have lain awake two hours now first just thinking about, then grabbing the PHB and designing Hester Bitterbrook

Build-wise, she’s a Pact of the Chain Warlock with the Great Old One patron. At third level her cantrips are Eldritch Blast and Poison Spray (which becomes a Water-type attack and thus actually useful!), her spells are Dissonant Whispers, Hex, Crown of Madness, and either Arms of Hadar or Witch Bolt, and her invocations are Repelling Blast and Dreadful Word (and the verbal and somatic components for the Confusion spell it allows are clutching her head and uttering a loud “QUACK?!” in just the right tone).

Characterization-wise… she’s clearly built for combat,but she would spend most fights quacking in fear, waving her hands, and watching the crystal orb she found on the bottom of the river glow ominously as terrible things happen to the unpleasant people around her. She really doesn’t want to think about it, and most of her spells are her mental static and distress expressing themselves in physical form.

As a Psyduck, she isn’t sure what happened to her, just that she found this strange orb and started having first strange dreams, then strange impulses, such as her urge to leave the water; her particular Great Old One speaks to her only in whispers, and in the bubbles that rise around her when she swims, and she can pretend they’re voices from her subconscious and everything is still all right. Her familiar (starting as a Horsea, and only taking Water-type forms like Krabby and Poliwag) is mostly there to keep her confused and docile. She’s not well-intentioned or innocent, like Sassafras, she’s just overwhelmed by everything and she wants the world to stop hurting all the time. She’ll hit it if she has to!

As a Golduck she’ll finally gain more control of her mental powers, which will include the uderstanding that she’s being used as a shell in another being’s game. Which got her out of The Whole World Hurts mode, so she’s unlikely to mind? This depends more on her character development to that point, but Golduck!Hester has the potential to nosedive down the slope from True Neutral to Neutral Evil once her head clears enough to realize she ENJOYS being able to fend the world off.

I think if I ever need to replace Sassafras (*makes warding sign*) in Murkle’s game I’m going to make an extremely spacey Psyduck warlock

she accidentally a contract with something very powerful and mysterious during a particularly bad headache (”I would give anything to make this headache go away” “Aaaaaanything?” “Yes, anything” rip Psyduck) and doesn’t remember where her powers came from so she thinks she’s just mysteriously magical

she doesn’t like thinking deeply about anything because it makes her head hurt. When she doesn’t want to talk about something, she reverts to quacking and acts like she can’t talk :P